COTABATO CITY, Philippines (PNA) – A tasty cooked mud crab marinated with tuba (coconut wine) shined in the first-ever crab cooking contest in this city in celebration of the 14th Shariff Kabunsuan Festival here.

Dubbed “Kulinarya” crab cooking contest, it was part of the major events in commemorating the arrival of Islamic religious missionary named Shariff Kabunsuan in mainland Mindanao to spread Islam.

The activities started Wednesday and culminated on Monday, with a fluvial parade commemorating the arrival of Shariff Kabunsuan via the vast Rio Grande de Mindanao.

The crab cooking competition was participated in by nine cooking enthusiasts in the city.

Each has his or her own creative crab recipe, and contestants were given an hour to prepare and cook their unique crab recipes for the judges.

After the competition, the judges had a hard time deciding which recipe merited the best as all were cooked very well and were prepared sumptuously, according to Halima Satol, city information chief.

Finally, the judges picked the recipe of Ismael Sali and Rogelio “Nonoy” Doruelo of radio station dxMS.

“It was the most simple and very original recipe,” Doruelo said of his “crab marinated with coconut wine.”

Placing second was Jay-ar Macalisang from the GIG Sizzling Haus and Restaurant who cooked the “chili creamy crab” recipe.

Jennelyn Masalta and Jayrel Garcia of STI Cotabato, who prepared “crab and chicken overload,” were judged third placers.

City Administrator Cynthia Guiani Sayadi said the crab cooking contest will become an annual event to show Cotabato City has the “tastiest mud crabs” in the country.

Meanwhile, many Americans may not be aware that their favorite pancakes and waffles in restaurants are topped with “healthy syrup” made from tuba, or fresh coconut sap extracted from coconut trees grown in the Philippines.

And that the latest products in the United States to adapt to the Philippine coco syrup product, a healthy alternative to cane sugar, are the chocolate bars.

The syrup topping is organically processed in a small plant located in the middle of a once-barren five-hectare farm, about nine kilometers from Poblacion Bansalan in Davao del Sur.

In 2009, the Donnabelle coco syrup was the first coconut sweetener in the world to be exported to the US, with ten drums containing 2,000 liters of the honey-like product as the first shipment, according to its owner Benjamin Lao.

Aside from the US, the coco syrup is also being sold to Australia.

The popularity of the coco syrup is phenomenal in the US, Lao told the Philippine Information Agency, citing increasing demand for it. Shipment now averages 56 drums every 60 days, he said.

Apart from pancakes, waffles, and chocolates, the Donnabelle coco syrup is being used as sweetener for other food products in restaurants, and for industrial and pharmaceutical purposes, both locally and internationally.

Aside from the coco syrup, the Lao Integrated Farms also manufactures the Donnabelle coco sugar which is being patronized locally by the Dragon Recipe Choice and Prangels Snack Inn, both in Digos City, Davao del Sur.

The Donnabelle brand is taken from names of Lao’s daughters Donna Rosalyn, a nursing graduate, and Belle Janine, a BS Psychology student. (With a report from PIA)